Fire And Darkness
by Shadows Of The Storm
Summary: The ongoing story of an exile who finds herself falling for the wrong person at all the wrong times. But can she pull away, and will she even want to? A collection of drabbles.
1. Wants

"Get away from me murderer." Shiarayn growled angrily, pushing Atton away from her as she strode past him, her temper flaring. She hadn't even been able to look at him since he had told her what he had done in his past at Nar Shaddaa. She was disgusted and anger. But mostly? Mostly, she was upset that he had lied to her and betrayed the trust she had so foolishly given him. What had she expected? That he had no secrets and would tell her every last one if he did just because she had let herself grow to care for him? Force, she was so incredibly stupid.

"Damn it Shiarayn, don't do that!" Atton finally growled, grabbing her and forcing her to look at him. Shiarayn narrowed her sea-green eyes and ripped herself out of his grasp. Red-heads were rumored to have one hell of a temper, and as the saying went 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' Well the scoundrel was about to get one heaping load full of scorned woman.

"Don't you dare touch me, _Jaq._ I don't want to be near your kind. I wish you had been killed in the damn war. It's what you deserve. Murders and traitors are nothing but scum to me." She hissed, stalking away from him as far as she could on the small smuggling ship. The Ebon Hawk, although her new home, was not the biggest place in the galaxy. And since more and more people had decided to join this little suicide mission of hers, there was even less room. Whoopdee-freaking-doo.

Atton easily caught up to her and she couldn't help yet another growl of frustration. Although Shiarayn normally admired his persistence, right now that was not what she needed from him. Couldn't he just give up and walk away like how she wanted him to? Wait, no, he couldn't. She wanted him to do that, and it seemed like he specialized in getting on her nerves by doing the exact opposite of what she wanted.

"Shia, just talk to me for a second!" He demanded and the exile whipped around. She had every mind to Force push him all the way back to the cockpit, but when she saw him standing there, she just couldn't do it. Damn whatever affect it was that he had on her. Although he irked her to no end, she just couldn't resist that face he made whenever he wanted something.

"What Atton? What is that you want?" Shiarayn sighed, the Force that had previously been swirling around her dieing down to a controllable level. For a moment, there was silence. Then Atton looked up at her and for once, there was nothing guarding his true self. He was completely open, completely exposed to her, and the intensity of his real emotions made her shiver.

Before she realized what she was doing, her pale hand had drifted up to his face, gently cupping his cheek. His skin was surprisingly soft, and Shiarayn didn't want to even think about the emotions that had erupted in her at the simple contact. His eyes met hers and they conveyed every message that needed to be said through a simple look. _I want to protect you. I want to keep you safe from all the danger in this universe. I want you to give me a chance to do those things._

Shiarayn pulled away from, unsure what to say. She had _never_ expected that from him. But now that it was there, how could she ignore him? The plain and simple answer? She never could.

"Alright. I'll train you. This is your chance. I'm only doing this because I…" the words that had almost pulled away from her throat stopped dead, and she swallowed heavily to remove them. _Because you mean more to me than you can ever know._ "Because you're my friend and I trust you." She smiled softly, trying to hide her shaking. She turned away from him with one final thought.

_If this could be your redemption, what could mine be?_


	2. Brighter

Shiarayn wasn't exactly sure when her frustration and yet teasing behavior had become something more. She hadn't really expected anything when she had found the scoundrel locked up in a force cage on Peragus. But somewhere along the line, her feelings had changed.

When everything had first started, it was simple. She had needed him to get off Peragus and then she knew that he would probably take off as soon as possible. And yet he hadn't. He had stuck around for some reason or another. She should have known when that fact had made her heart beat a little faster. But she had pleasantly ignored the feeling and chalked it up to the fact that it was always nice to have company that could help out in a fight.

And yet she had completely ignored the other little hints that had been thrown in along the way. Her open smile around him, how she trusted him despite his past and how he acted, and how she had grown to depend on him. She had never depended on anyone before besides maybe Revan. And that relationship had been…complicated, to say the least. Yet whenever she was around Atton, things just seemed easier. And then the time came when she had finally figured it all out.

It had seemed a simple enough moment. Atton was leaned back in the pilot's chair, his legs up as he played a game of pazaak by himself. The red-headed exile had stepped inside the cockpit silently and sat herself down beside in the co-pilot's seat. He didn't say anything, so she didn't see the need to say anything either. There they had been, content just to be in each other's company when they both decided to look at the other.

Their eyes locked, his chocolate brown clashing with her own sea-green. Silence had reigned for what could have been seconds or hours and everything stopped. Shiarayn's blood stopped pumping, her heart stopped beating, and there was nothing in the universe that mattered beside that moment right there in the cockpit of the Ebon Hawk. Nothing else in the universe mattered besides Atton Rand and Shiarayn Taim.

And that was when everything clicked into place, and the realization stole the exile's breath.

She was completely and totally in love with the man sitting right next to her.

The moment passed, they both smiled at each other as if they knew what the other was thinking, and they returned back to their previous actions. The universe moved on, time went forward, and everything went back to normal.

But maybe now was just a little bit brighter than it had been before.


	3. Good Bye

The Ebon Hawk was eerily silent; the only sounds the crashing of thunder outside. The ship was unsteady and heavily damaged and Shiarayn knew that she needed to go out to Malachor soon to face Kreia. But she had one last thing to do before she could bring herself to do that.

The cockpit was wide open, openly revealing Atton's quick movements around the small room. He was cursing lowly under his breath as he went about trying to fix his own personal part of the ship, and Shiarayn stopped for a moment just to watch him.

This was probably the last time she was going to see him. The thought struck her hard and it literally made her feel a pain in her chest. But that was the dismal truth. Her chances of surviving her encounter with her former mentor were slim to none. She would make Kreia pay for what she had done even if it meant the old woman's death. But it was very likely the exile herself would die along with her. Steeling herself, she took a quiet step inside.

Atton stopped what he was doing almost instantly and turned around to face her. For a moment, Shiarayn couldn't bring herself to say what she had planned. Her prepared speech flew right out the viewport when she saw him and she mentally laughed at how pathetic she was. Revan had been right. She had always given into her feelings so completely and totally that it made her almost dependent on them. But for once she didn't care. This would be the last moment she had with Atton, and she wasn't about to let anything take her mind off of him.

The scoundrel turned Jedi opened his mouth to speak, but Shiarayn shook her head as her silent warning. The last thing she needed was for him to talk. If he said anything to her, she would lose all the nerve she had worked up to challenge Kreia.

"Don't. Just let me say what I need to." Shiarayn paused, taking in a shaky breath. A few more moments passed before she was able to continue, and when she did, she was trembling. "Things haven't always been easy between us Atton. I understand that. But I just wanted…needed to let you know that you mean more to me than anything. And I can't stand the thought of losing you. So no matter what happens, don't follow me. Please. I need to know your safe so I can stay focused. Otherwise I'll be thinking about you. If I don't make it back-" She started to say, but Atton interrupted.

"Don't say things like that Shia." He ordered, grasping her hands tightly. She shook her head, trying to force back her own emotional tears.

"Don't be stupid. You know it could happen. If I don't make it back, do what you must. Just do what you know is right and know that I'll always be watching out for you. I love you." She muttered the last words quietly before pulling him into a tight embrace and kissing him with all her pent up passion.

And right there, in that single moment of pure, untainted bliss, she no longer felt incomplete. The piece of her that had been missing since the activation of the Mass Shadow Generator seemed to shrink away and dissipate. The part of her heart that had been ripped to shreds by Revan and Malak's betrayal seemed to pull itself back together, mending the shattered fragments back into one, perfectly beating whole.

At that very moment, Shiarayn Taim swore to herself that she would not die on this forsaken planet. She had finally found her redemption, and nothing was going to take him from her.

The red-head pulled away from him pulled away from Atton and smiled reassuringly, brushing back a stray piece of his hair. Then without a second thought, she bolted through the Ebon Hawk's corridors to face her destiny.


End file.
